U.S. Pat. No. 6,780,077 B2 discloses a toy vehicle combination which includes a first, “master,” motorized, chased, remotely controlled toy vehicle and a second, “slave,” motorized, chasing, self-directed toy vehicle. Each toy vehicle includes a chassis with a plurality of supporting road wheels, a motive system drivingly coupled to at least one of the plurality of road wheels to propel the chassis and a steering system operably coupled to at least one of the plurality of road wheels to steer the chassis. The master toy vehicle includes a transmitter configured to broadcast infrared (IR) tracking signal, a radio frequency (RF) receiver configured to receive control signals from an RF remote controller, and on-board, master toy vehicle control circuit connected to the receiver and having a first output for controlling the motive system and a second output for controlling the steering system of the master toy vehicle. The slave toy vehicle includes at least one directional receiver configured to receive the IR tracking signal from the transmitter of the master toy vehicle, a control circuit coupled to the at least one directional receiver, first and second outputs of the control circuit connected to the motive system and steering system of the slave toy vehicle or independent motive systems to propel and steer the vehicle. The slave toy vehicle control circuit is configured to control the first and second outputs based upon tracking signals received from the master toy vehicle so as to “chase” and “strike” the master toy vehicle with the slave toy vehicle. The operator attempts to control the movement of the master toy vehicle to prevent it from being caught and struck by the slave toy vehicle.
It is believed that the play value of the above pair of toy vehicles in U.S. Pat. No. 6,780,077 B2 could be improved by providing additional challenges to control the master toy vehicle to while evading the slave toy vehicle.